Forum:50: Night of Terror
On advice from Lexington, the group participated in an assault on a church within the Terceira city limits, which Lexington confirmed to hold illegal firearms and explosives that were going to be transported away from the city. However, on their approach, Yahtuh felt another premonition or shared experience with the killer, imagining a voice calling out to a "Leona" before he snuffed out the sun with his hand. On attacking the church, the group coordinated with Lexington to make a two-pronged assault and cut down the resisting Librennian MPs on the first floor with ease. However, the third floor of the building, where Lexington was, suddenly exploded, and shots started coming in through the windows, which were killing the soldiers inside. Lin and Yahtuh moved to subdue the remaining targets while Little Guy and Artyom figured out where the shots were being fired from. The latter group identified the bell tower of the central Church of Dona Leiria as the point of origin for the gunfire, and it was nearly a mile away from them. Artyom, with help from the Lordly Raven, fired two shots to disable the weapon's scope and bipod, while the rest of the group rescued Lexington and got the remaining soldiers and weapons out of the building. As night fell, the group heard the news that the remaining MPs involved in the smuggling ring were going to escape on a boat owned by the Monsignor of the Church of Dona Leiria, but the Monsignor himself had been found murdered. The group followed up on clues including a group of MPs caught in the street by Librennian Intelligence, a fire set at a shed, and a derelict passing on coded messages, and eventually arrived at a group of warehouses by a canal leading out to the ocean. The group, communicating covertly with Lexington and Ritter, ended up finding several high-ranking members of the Librennian MPs in Warehouse 27, though found that it was also wired up with explosives with the detonator in an adjacent room. Little Guy went to investigate, and found that the soldier with the detonator had been slain covertly, but suddenly returned to unlife in order to carry out his duty while the others were still inside. Little Guy stopped him with gunfire, and the group managed to subdue the others still inside. After the fighting started, the adjacent Warehouse 25 exploded into flames and the ship flew out over the canal. As a couple hundred Librennian MPs scattered outside, the figure of Pvt. Tilden, the first victim of the killings, stepped out onto the deck of the burning ship, wielding a giant machine gun, and fired into the crowd. Yahtuh sent out a pulse of positive energy to allay the feelings of fear over the crowd, while Lin charged onto the deck of the ship to disable the weapon. Though the killer struck down a number of people, and interrupted the group's ability to resist with a terror-inducing gaze, the group eventually destroyed the weapon and the killer retreated to the stern of the ship. Lexington and Ritter managed to free a number of policemen from the ship's forecastle with an explosive charge, and thereafter the group assembled on the group to confront the killer, only to find them holding Cmdr. Douglas, the head of Librennian MPs, hostage at knifepoint. The group attempted their approach, and Lexington fired a shot that knocked the killer's hat off. With the magic in their disguise gone, the killer's true form was revealed as Agent Marie "Frozen" Waters, Lexington's partner. Lexington asked her what her mission was, and was subdued by her fearsome gaze. However, when she made eye contact with Yahtuh, he instead travelled to a world of memories, where he clearly remembered the night when he killed his former teammates, and spoke with Agent Waters, who was also there at the time and had helped him carry out his massacre. She explained that Baihu wanted them both to live, and that her survival was what inspired her to devote the rest of her life to it. She mentioned that she remembered Yahtuh from their time in Terceira, but Yahtuh did not, perhaps because he wanted to escape or change from that time in his life, while she saw it as the greatest moment in her life and thus would never forget it. As Yahtuh had little to say in response, she instead told him to take her knife, and bear witness as Baihu devoured her soul to become the Apex Predator. Yahtuh thus saw the giant white tiger crawl out of the shadows, cast his gaze down on the young woman, and ate her whole with one bite. Yahtuh, struck by a sudden rush of adrenaline, swung his knife at the Tiger, and suddenly the memory gave way to reality, revealing that Yahtuh cut through the hostage commander in order to strike the body of Waters with her own knife, throwing her into the canal below. The boat then exploded and sent the party, including Lexington and Ritter, down in front of the warehouses, where they managed to get the unconscious among them awake and Lexington absconded into the night, asking the group to investigate the past of his former comrade and tell him who she really was... Rewards for the mission are as follows: For bringing the story to a close, and saving close to 150 lives from the jaws of Baihu: 50,000 XP per person The Fang of Baihu: A knife wielded by Marie Waters, who became the avatar of Baihu's wrath. This knife can pierce anything with equal measure, and snuffs out lives before it draws blood. The knife is +5, deals 1d6 bleed and bypasses DR. However, it cannot be used to cut inanimate objects, and will not deal nonlethal damage. Furthermore, targets must make a Will save (value unknown) when taking damage from this knife or immediately drop to -1 HP.